How to format your references using the Journal of Tropical Life Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Tropical Life Science. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Scanlon JD (2006) Skull of the large non-macrostomatan snake Yurlunggur from the Australian Oligo-Miocene. Nature 439 (7078): 839–842.

A journal article with 2 authors

Piperno DR, Sues H-D (2005) Paleontology. Dinosaurs dined on grass. Science (New York, NY) 310 (5751): 1126–1128.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sawamura H, Shima K, Tanji J (2002) Numerical representation for action in the parietal cortex of the monkey. Nature 415 (6874): 918–922.

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Lin J-F, Wu J, Zhu J et al. (2014) Abnormal elastic and vibrational behaviors of magnetite at high pressures. Scientific reports 4 6282.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Zeng K, Lou W, Li M (2011) Multihop Wireless Networks. Chichester, UK, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Akçali E (2016) Neoliberal Governmentality and the Future of the State in the Middle East and North Africa. New York, NY, Palgrave Macmillan US.

A chapter in an edited book

Bouwens R (2016) High-Redshift Galaxy Surveys and the Reionization of the Universe. In: Mesinger A ed Understanding the Epoch of Cosmic Reionization: Challenges and Progress. Cham, Springer International Publishing. pp 111–143.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Journal of Tropical Life Science.

Blog post

Davis J (2017) There Are Only 30 Critically Endangered Vaquita Left In The World. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/there-are-only-30-critically-endangered-vaquita-left-in-the-world/. (2017)Accessed: October 2018.

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office (1996) Human Resources Information Systems Issue Area: Active Assignments. Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Beck RE (2012) Examining the relationship between self-initiated expatriation and cross-cultural adjustment among expatriate spouses within nonprofit organizations: A quantitative causal-comparative study. Doctoral dissertation, Capella University

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Greenhouse L (2009) The Chief Justice on the Spot. New York Times A27.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [2].
This sentence cites two references [2, 4].
This sentence cites four references [2, 4, 6, 8].

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Tropical Life Science
Abbreviation	J. Trop. Life Sci.
ISSN (print)	2087-5517
ISSN (online)	2527-4376
Scope

Research and Writing Guides